God's Standard for Judgment. Romans 2:1
Righteousness is a word that
means something according to a standard. If you are going to let somebody come
into your home they are going to meet the standards that you have set. God is
the same way. If He is going to let somebody come into heaven He is the one who
sets the standard. He wants them to measure up to His standard and He is not
going to let them in just because they think that they have the right to be in
there. God has a righteous character and He demands that anyone who comes into
heaven meets His righteous standard and His righteous character. This is why
Paul is writing this epistle to the Romans. It is to explain what God’s
standard is and how it can be met, and how that standard of God’s character has
been worked out and displayed within the framework of human history and
individual lives. So he sets forth the principles that we see in those key
verses in the middle of chapter one in vv. 17-20.
In
verse 17 he lays down the theme verse for Romans: NASB “For in it {the} righteousness of God is
revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘BUT THE RIGHTEOUS {man} SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’” The word there for righteousness is dikaiosune [dikaiosunh]—the sune
ending is an ending that indicates the quality of something. In the quote from
Habakkuk 2:4 we read “the righteous will live by his faith,” and the word for
“righteous” there is the noun dikaios
[dikaioj]. That word group can mean either
righteousness or justice. Righteousness is the standard of something; justice
is meeting the standard. Romans
The other
thing that we see with wrath if we look at how it is used in the Scripture, and
especially in Romans, is that it has a primary focus on wrath that is the
outpouring of God’s discipline or judgment on human beings in time, i.e. within
history, not a future wrath such as the Tribulation period. In Romans it is
talking about the present tense outpouring of God’s wrath—“is revealed,” it is
ongoing in present time.
From verse
18 on Paul speaks about how God’s wrath or judgment is going to be applied to
those who are unrighteous. We saw one category of the unrighteous in vv. 24-32,
and that has to do with a form of unrighteousness of those who have rejected
God and it degenerates into immoral degeneracy. When we come to 2:1 it begins
with a “therefore.” It is not the normal Greek word that is found for
therefore, oun [o)un], it is dio
[dio] which is the same word as in
The sin
nature is driven by the core motivation of the lust pattern, a variety of
lusts, and we all have them to one degree or another. Everybody is different.
There is everything from power lust, approbation lust, money lust, materialism
lust, sexual lust; all kinds of different lust patterns, just desire on
steroids to have certain things beyond anything that is legitimate. And the way
one perceives getting those is going to be characterized by certain trends, and
each of us has different trends. Trends can change over the years. If these
trends are allowed to work themselves out over time then they are going to end
up in one of two categories: moral degeneracy or immoral degeneracy. Most
people think of degeneracy as something immoral, but someone who is
self-righteously moral is so mired in his own arrogance and so degenerate in
his arrogance that people often don’t recognize it, and that is the moral
degenerate. Scripturally we look at the moral degenerate in terms of so many of
the Pharisees; they are just loaded with all kinds of arrogance. No sense of
grace, no sense of humility whatsoever; he is morally over the edge, morally
degenerate.
What Paul has dealt with in
Romans chapter one is the consequence of suppressing the truth of God in
unrighteousness in relation to the immoral degenerate; now in 2:1 and through
chapter two he deals with the consequence of the moralist who emphasizes his
own morality as being good enough to get into God’s heaven. Others call him
self-righteous, but the problem with using that term is that it sounds as if he
comes across that way, and they don’t necessarily come across that way. Others
have a pseudo-humility and we don’t see the fact that they just feel like they
are good enough to get into heaven. In chapter two Paul is talking about the
moralist and the first eleven verses really focus on the moralist and it could
be either a Gentile or a Jew. It doesn’t become clear that he is applying this
to the Jewish self-righteous, like the Pharisee, until verse 12 where he begins
to talk about the law. When he gets into the second part of this and begins to
critique the Jewish moralist Paul refers to them as “the Jew,” just as the
apostle John does in the Gospel of John. But these are not terms that are being
used in an offensive or anti-Semitic way. Over the years people have come along
and accused John of being anti-Semitic but he is referring to the leaders of
the Jews, and he was Jewish himself, as was the apostle Paul. It is not a
racial issue at all in an anti-Semitic way. Paul is very much pro-Jewish. He is
anti-Pharisee, anti-Sadducee, anti the Jewish religious concept that by works you
can gain approval with God. And that is not unique to Judaism. Every religion
in the world other than biblical Christianity puts an emphasis on works. What
Paul is going to point out in chapter two is that even those who avow a strong
system of morality can’t measure up. No human being can measure up to the
absolute perfect standards of God. Paul’s focus here is not one that is
condemning Jews as Jews, he is condemning the approach of Pharisaic Judaism to
righteousness through works. As he gets into this he is going to show that on
the basis of divine revelation all are condemned, Jew and Gentile.
Paul’s second conclusion in
relation to his argument that all are without excuse is Romans 2:1 NASB
“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that
which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the
same things.” The phrase “without excuse” is the same Greek word as is used in
“…
everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you
condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” As he draws this
conclusion at the beginning there are three things that we should note. First
of all he is drawing a conclusion which is not a conclusion from the list of
sins and the stages of sins in
What
Paul says in this section is the human beings are going to react in one of
three ways to the knowledge of the existence of God. The first way is that they
are going to reject it and then as God takes away the restraint of their sin
nature they are going to spiral down into immoral degeneracy. The second group
is going to reject the existence of God and God is going to allow them to
spiral down into moral degeneracy. The third group reflects those who want to
accept the existence of God on His terms rather than on their terms. This idea
that all have sinned and come under the judgment of God, which is what Paul’s
conclusion will be in Romans
“Each
of us has turned to his own way.” The Hebrew word translated way means a path
or a road. It is the same word that is used in Proverbs when it says “There is
a way”—there is a path or a road—“that seems right to man, but the end thereof
is death.” We have all decided that every path leads to God—except one:
Christianity, because they say theirs is the exclusive path.
In
Romans chapter two Paul says: “Therefore you are without excuse.” He is talking
to the self-righteous moralist, the person who thinks that somehow by religious
works, by moral effort, ethics, his own integrity he can gain the approval of
God. Then he says, “everyone of you who passes judgment.” It is better
translated “all you who judge” or “anyone who judges.” The word “judge” is the
participle form of krino [krinw], and krino has a wide range of meanings. It
has the idea of separating, distinguishing, exercising discernment in decision
making, considering, reflecting upon something, the idea of judging in the act
of a legal judge sitting on the bench adjudicating a trial, the idea of
deciding something. So what does Paul mean by judging here? It has to be here
the idea of judging in the sense of being God, making negative judgments about
whether or not a person is approved by God. It is exemplified in the Gospels by
the Pharisee who comes into the temple and sees the beggar outside, looks down
his nose and says, well thank God I’m not like him. That is judging, saying I
am better than he is, I am superior to him in the eyes of God; pure arrogance.
So the sense of judge here is in the sense of that arrogant condemnation of
others where the person judging has no right, no knowledge, no basis to do that.
Romans 2:2 NASB
“And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice
such things.” NKJV “according
to truth.” There is a standard,
“according to the truth.” The article
is there, it indicates a specific, absolute, universal transcendent truth. The
judgment of God is according to truth. Why? Because God knows everything. God’s
standard is perfectly righteous; that is His character. God is omniscient; He
knows all the facts. There’s not one little fact that escapes His knowledge, so
only He can make a perfect decision. And because He is absolute truth, and it
is impossible for Him to lie, there is no shadow there, so God’s judgment is
going to be according to a perfect standard. Only He can judge according to a
perfect standard and His judgment is against those who practice such things—not
the ones who are committing all of those sins in chapter one but the ones who
aren’t committing any of those sins and think that they are superior to those
who are because they are not doing those things. Their arrogance makes them
just as guilty as the arrogance of those who are immoral. Paul uses the Greek
word oida [o)ida]. ginosko
[ginwskw] is another word in the Greek for
knowledge; it has the idea of coming to learn something, going through the
process of studying growth and learning, whereas oida has to do with seeing something intuitively. It is used
in the Gospel of John to refer to the omniscience of God but it is also used of
recognizing a self-evident conclusion.
Romans 2:3 NASB
“But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice
such things and do the same {yourself,} that you will escape the judgment of
God?” We think that because we are not committing all of those horrible sins of
those people we don’t like that somehow we are not going to get the same
judgment they are. But Paul is saying no, even the moralist is just as guilty
of sin an d falling short of the glory of God as licentious and the one who is
involved in all of the moral degeneracy.
What Paul
says in these three verses is just a reflection of what Jesus said in Matthew.
In the sermon on the mount Jesus is addressing the problem that within first
century Judaism the Pharisees, in order to keep the Jews from violating the
Torah, had built a wall around it of various traditions and prohibitions so
that as long as people didn’t break those they knew they wouldn’t break any of
the 613 commandments in the Torah. Those traditions, though, came to have the
same authority as the commandments in the Mosaic Law. So the Pharisees are
putting this burden on the people that they have to not only watch out for the
613 commandments but they can’t violate the 1500 other regulations and
traditions that they had built up around the observance of the Torah. Jesus
addresses this in the first five verses of Matthew chapter seven.
Matthew 7:1 NASB “Do not judge so
that you will not be judged.” He is using the verb krino, but He is not saying don’t make evaluations, don’t
make decisions. He is not saying it is wrong to have judges in a courtroom. He
is talking about the fact that judgments were made by the Pharisees as to
individual spiritual status based on their observance of that person’s external
behavior. That is what is under condemnation by Jesus. He is saying nobody can
put themselves in God’s place and look at somebody and determine whether they
are in a right standing with God or not. Part of the reason is because we all
sin at times and our standing before God is based on His grace and not based on
our behavior. When He says, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged,” He
is saying the basis of your self-righteous, vindictive criticism of somebody is
the basis for your judgment as well. [2] “For in the way you judge, you will be
judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”
The first
sin is judging somebody, and that means condemning them on the basis of their
behavior in terms of their spiritual status before God. This wasn’t being
critical of somebody, it was far beyond that; this had to do with determining
their spiritual standing before God. The second issue that comes along is that
you are now going to be judged on the basis of the criticism that you made of
the other person; that discipline is going to be given to you. So you are going
to judge somebody and you are going to get disciplined for that, and then that
discipline is going to be compounded again as it is brought back on you. Then
Jesus begins to illustrate it. Matthew 7:3 NASB “Why do you look at
the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in
your own eye?”
Matthew 7:4 NASB
“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’
and behold, the log is in your own eye?” Then the accusation: [5] “You
hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see
clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Romans 2:4 NASB
“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and
patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” The
answer there, again, is yes. They are despising the grace of God because they
have decided that rather than accepting a free gift they want to earn it. The
hardest thing for Christians to learn is grace orientation, because we live in
a society that say we don’t get anything for nothing. What Paul says here is
that when the grace of God is rejected and you put the emphasis on works you
are in essence despising the fullness of God’s goodness, His patience, His
longsuffering, that the goodness of God, all of these blessings, is to change
your mind and to turn back to God, to accept the free offer of grace.
Romans 2:5 NASB
“But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up
wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment
of God.” The two words, “hardness” and “impenitent heart” are Greek words sklerotes [sklhrothj] and ametonometos
[a)metanohtoj]. The first represents a hardness; you
have strengthened your heart against God. The second is impenitent, it is not
going to turn, it was not going to say I was wrong and God was right; there’s
no sense of humility or turning to God. What this is doing is loading up your
savings account with divine discipline. This is to an unbeliever. He is going
to reap the consequences of what he has sown. The word translated “storing up”
is the present active indicative of Greek word thesaurizo
[qhsaurizw], from which we get our English word
“thesaurus,” treasury of words. So you treasure or store something up. So the
more the unbeliever rejects the grace of God and the more he refuses the turn,
the more he stores up divine discipline. This isn’t talking about end-time
discipline. The wrath revealed in 1:18 is explained in present time in vv.
24-32. The wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness,
which includes the moral arrogance of the moral degenerate, is being revealed
in time.